CTA/SEIU members make fools of themselves at the California State Capitol

The "California State of Emergency" activities planned by the California Teachers Association (CTA) took place all week at the California State Capitol in Sacramento, with several dozen CTA members even being arrested for trespassing after refusing to leave the Capitol after closing hours.

Another teacher I want to see arrested is the dunce who made and carried this misspelled sign and put it out there for all the world to see. The sign had the same thing written on both sides, and the word "Crisis" was misspelled on both sides!

All the week's events, however, were just filler for the big event to come, and that was yesterday's rally on the south steps of the Capitol. Thousands of union members arrived to demand that the California legislature and Governor Brown raise taxes on Californians so that teachers can keep their jobs.

This is all great stuff, right? Wrong! And remember, I am a California public school teacher.

As it is, approximately 40% of all tax revenues in California currently go toward our bloated education system, and over the past seven years, education budgets have seen a healthy net increase, to the tune of just under 26% between 2003 and 2009. Ask a typical CTA member however, and they will swear that there is no money for education in California. To that I say, there is plenty of money alright, they are just horrifically mis-spending it on things like increased administrator salaries and Taj Mahal high schools that cost over a half-billion dollars. How many teacher jobs might that money have saved?

Let's take a look at some of the attendees of yesterday's rally.

The majority of the attendees were CTA members and members of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). Then of course, there were also the school students who were brought to the Capitol as human shields for the wage and benefit demands of the teachers. Seeing these gullible, ignorant students being used as props by these petulant childish teachers frankly creeped me out:

If you weren't aware, the song they were singing - "Solidarity Forever" - is a radical piece of fluff that was written for the far-left International Workers of the World (IWW, or "Wobblies" as they are known). The song was later made even more famous by communist singer/songwriter, and long-time Stalinist, Pete Seeger.

As a matter of fact, there was quite a bit of eyelash batting at the idea of socialism and communism at this shindig. First, I was handed this flyer:

Then, a few steps later, I looked up and saw this:



Well, Hola Che! Fancy seeing you here! Not surprising, though.

Adding to the partisan flavor of the rally, there were scenes like this:

And this:

Then we had the "Education is a Right!" crowd:



Sorry folks; it isn't a right, no matter how much you may want it to be. Education can only be provided by taking time and money from someone else. You have the right to seek education, but you do not have the right to have it provided for you by the taxpayer.

There weren't just teachers at this rally. Very soon after I arrived, I found my first SEIU member:

And where there is one, there are many more. The thugs of the Purple Ocean always travel together in packs:

I couldn't stay long, as the batteries on my FLIP Camera were failing me (oops.), and I had a dinner date scheduled with my wife (Cafe Bernardo at 28th and Capitol is always a hit!). As I was getting ready to head out, that is when I heard it: the pounding feet, the wimpy voices, the indecipherable chant. OH NO! IT'S CORNY STREET THEATER!!!



I think they are saying, "We left our classrooms and came to the Capitol to make sure our students aren't left behind...." The first lesson on chants is that you don't make them too verbose. I give these teachers an F.

As I headed back toward my car, I turned and took a long shot of the event:

Most of the people there seemed nice enough. I'm sure they believed in their cause; the question I was left with was what that cause was. While they were quick to push the kids out in front of them and say it was all for them, it was quite easy to tell that these teachers were here to save their own skin, and not the skin of their students. And that's fine, the CTA is a labor union. The job of a labor union is maximize the number of employees in its profession, and get for them the highest pay and benefits possible. But see, the CTA didn't do that. They couch it as being all about "the kids."

The amusing part is that the whole reason for this event had already been solved by the time it happened. An unexpected $2.5 billion dollar rise in incoming tax revenues enabled the Republican minority in the state legislature to offer a budget that fully funded Prop 98, which mandates a certain percentage of the state budget go toward education. Of course, the Republican-hating attendees of this rally didn't want to hear that. I'm sure the thought of the Republican Party saving their bacon is a horror they wish not to contemplate. But then, that wasn't the main motivation for this whole affair in the first place. This sign gives a better summation:

I give this teacher an A for honesty.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson